1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to mechanisms for feeding and ejecting rounds of ammunition in automatic guns having relatively small diameter rotating barrel clusters, e.g. Gatling type guns.
This invention was made during the course of work under a contract with the Department of the Air Force.
2. Prior Art
Automatic guns having relatively small diameter rotating barrel clusters are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,834,272 issued to R. A. Patenaude et al on Sept. 10, 1974, and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,511 issued to R. A. Patenaude on Sept. 19, 1978. In such guns the gun barrels are very close to each other about the longitudinal axis of the gun and conventional systems for feeding rounds into and out of the gun are not appropriate. In a more conventional gun, such as is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,380,342 issued to R. E. Chiabrandy on Apr. 30, 1968, a guide bar or stationary cam is utilized to guide the flow of rounds to and from the gun bolts in conjunction with the interactions of the gun rotor and the feed and eject sprocket assemblies. This guide bar projects from the gun housing into an annular recess cut, to a depth of the gun barrel circle, into the gun rotor. The structural integrity of the gun rotor is maintained by the remaining central corre of the rotor. In a small diameter rotor where the gun barrels touch each other on the outside diameter of their chambers, there would not be any central core remaining if an annulus for such a guide bar was to be cut into the rotor. Other mechanisms, such as are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,733,960 issued to E. Ashley et al on May 22, 1973 and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,015,511 issued to L. R. Folsom et al on Apr. 5, 1977 are also not usable.
Therefore, an object of this invention is to provide a mechanism for feeding rounds to and from the gun bolts in a small diameter rotor.
A feature of this invention is the provision of a plurality of cam driven follower assemblies carried by the rotor, one for each gun bolt, for pushing a round from the feed sprocket to the gun bolt, and from the gun bolt to the exit sprocket.